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Berry Plastics Group Celebrating Its 50th Year in Business

Berry Plastics Group is a foremost provider of value-added plastic consumer packaging, nonwoven specialty materials, and engineered materials. The Company delivers high-quality customized solutions to its customers. Berry designs its products using proprietary research and innovative development and manufacturing technologies. Since 1988, the Company has been one of the most active acquirers of plastic packaging businesses worldwide, having acquired greater than 30 businesses.

Berry Plastics Group has its head office in Evansville, Indiana. The Company is celebrating its 50th year in business this year. Berry established in 1967 with one injection molding machine producing plastic cast. It has more than 21,000 employees and 115 facilities globally.

The Company’s products include;

Open top and closed top packaging

Polyethylene-based plastic films

Industrial tapes

Medical specialties

Flexible packaging

Heat-shrinkable coatings

Specialty laminates

FIBCs – Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers (bulk bags).

Berry Plastics Group serves a wide spectrum of markets. These markets include Personal Care; Household; Food; Beverages; Foodservice; Health Care; and Industrial & Transportation. Regarding packaging, the Company has award winning flexible and rigid packaging processes to an array of hybrid solutions.

Concerning Protection Solutions, it provides a varied assortment of protection solutions. This is in areas that range from the consumer packaged goods market, to medical and personal care, to industrial use. Pertaining to Tapes & Adhesives, Berry provides pressure sensitive tapes and adhesives to a wide assortment of applications and markets. These include industrial, building and construction, abatement, retail, splicing and laminating, surface protection, aerospace, automotive, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, original equipment manufacturer (OEM), medical, and more.

The Company had net sales of $6.5 billion in Fiscal 2016. For the 2016 Fiscal Year (FY) it produced a record $517 million of adjusted FCF (Free Cash Flow). For Q4 2016, Berry had record net sales and operating EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) for any September quarter and FY in its history.

This month, Berry Plastics Group completed the previously announced acquisition of AEP Industries, Inc. (AEP). The Company issued 6.5 million common shares and paid $297 million as merger consideration in exchange for all the outstanding shares of AEP common stock and outstanding AEP equity awards. Moreover, Berry Plastics paid $164 million to retire outstanding AEP debt.

Mr. Jon Rich, Berry Plastics Group’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “The acquisition of AEP has given us the opportunity to expand the breadth of product offerings and production capacity within our Engineered Materials Division, enabling us to better serve our customers.”

The Company said in its Q4 2016 Earnings Call that, “With respect to AEP, we still feel very comfortable with the annual cash flow that it will generate of around $85 million on a normalized basis.” (Berry Plastics Group’s (BERY) Q4 2016 Results – Earnings Call Transcript – Seeking Alpha)

Berry Plastics Group will report its first Fiscal 2017 quarter results on Friday, February 3, 2017, before trading starts on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The Company will hold its regular quarterly conference call on its results and performance at 10 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) on that day. A live webcast of the conference call and supplemental presentation can be accessed via the investor relations section of Berry’s website http://www.berryplastics.com.